Jim Feast reviews By Kelman Out Of Pessoa

In The Brooklyn Rail, Jim Feast discusses the challenges and achievements of Doug Nufer’s By Kelman Out Of Pessoa. Nufer’s novel “is another of his contributions to the ‘literature of constraint,'” Feast writes. He continues:

Taking hints from Scottish novelist James Kelman—who in one story had his characters devise a system to win at the track—and from Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa—who went a bit batty with pseudonym personas, having characters he invented write and publish verse under their own names—Nufer has created a unique novel. In 2003, he went to the Emerald Downs racetrack near Seattle and, using Kelman’s system, bet for three characters he invented, using their wins and losses to structure the novel. There is also some Flann O’Brien and Gilbert Sorrentino in the book’s lineage; just as in the novels of those two avant-garde fictioneers, Nufer’s characters realize they are literary creations.